


it’s hard to keep a white dress clean

by ruiconteur



Series: begins as a lump in the throat [8]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, Poetry, Religious Conflict, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, the inherent trauma of being in a devoutly christian family, who refuses to tolerate any other way of thinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:29:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28503753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruiconteur/pseuds/ruiconteur
Summary: everything bleeds to white atop the casket.
Series: begins as a lump in the throat [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694134
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	it’s hard to keep a white dress clean

**Author's Note:**

> this poem has been published in [the amber chapbook](https://amberchapbook.wordpress.com/issue-1-feb-2021/)!

buy a white dress for the confessional. knee-length, no  
higher. your mother scolds you for trying to  
tuck the fabric under your knees for prayer. _it’s so hard  
__to keep a white dress clean_ , she says,  
eye-whites gleaming cold  
and pale under the lights. _think of the work you’re giving me_ ,  
she says, teeth bared—  
white flashes—  
scraped clean of blood.  
prayer can’t save your knees now, red-scabbed  
and white-scarred from kneeling  
for hours without protection.

buy a white dress for the baptism. buy a white dress  
thin enough to flutter butterfly-delicate  
around you, the wings of a forsaken angel stripped  
of stiff feathers and holy light. you get in  
the water and it spreads out around you like sea foam.  
your father pushes you under  
and the mermaid drowns  
your penance: the water in your lungs.  
you peel off your dress to find white  
handprints against your skin.

buy a white dress for the sermon. lichtenburg  
figures sprawl eerie white down  
your lightning-rod spine, forming every word  
you heard the pastor say, cut into you  
like an age-old prayer. you are struck down, cast out, fallen from the  
stillness of heaven—now the only thing  
moving under your skin is quilled fear.

buy a white dress for the funeral. strappy white heels  
—platforms, not stilettos—  
inch their way across a white-mold floor.  
someone with your face is laid out  
in an ivory casket, a casket spray of bone-white  
lilies and roses arranged across it.  
one by one you

let fall your flowers:  
your parents bring admiring carnations,  
a pale pink blush high on the furled petals, but  
you hold a crimson rose, a lone spot of  
grief for the innocence that fills the room. it doesn’t matter  
either way—  
everything bleeds to white atop the casket.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on [tumblr](https://ruiconteur.tumblr.com) or [instagram](https://www.instagram.com/ruiconteur/)!


End file.
